GB2329345A

GB2329345A - Toy aeroplane

Info

Publication number: GB2329345A
Application number: GB9719803A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Richard Papa
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1997-09-17
Filing date: 1997-09-17
Publication date: 1999-03-24
Also published as: GB9719803D0

Abstract

The toy aeroplane comprises a fuselage 100, a wing 300, a tailplane 400 and a dorsal member 200. The dorsal member 200 provides a tail fin (203 Figure 8) and also has tabs (204,205) which lock the tailplane 400 to the fuselage 100 and also lock together the wing 300 and the tailplane 400. A length (B) of the wing 300 is greater than a first length (D) but less than a second length (E) of wing-receiving structures (104 Figure 1) of the fuselage 100 so that the wing may be assembled to the fuselage by rearward sliding followed by pressing down and forward sliding of the wing into the fusetage. The fuselage 100 is made up of a pair of side parts (101) having a longitudinally extending gap therebetween. The dorsal member 200 extends along this gap.

Description

TOY AEROPLANE The invention relates to a toy aeroplane.

Known toy gliders which may be thrown by hand are disclosed= lh US-4,103,454 and US-5,482,489. The more sophisticated toy glider of the two is disclosed in US-5,482,489. It has an upwardly-projecting dorsal member which is positioned entirely above the centre of the wing and helps to prevent the wing from folding in half by maintaining the upwardlybowed curvature of the centre of the wing. The dimension of the wing from the leading edge back to the trailing edge, at the position at which the wing is slotted into the side parts of the fuselage, is the same as the length of the slots of the fuselage. Thus, the wing is relatively difficult to insert and remove from the fuselage. The tail fin is provided by upwardly-projecting parts of the rear of the fuselage.

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided toy aeroplane comprising a fuselage having a pair of longitudinal side parts positioned side by side with an upwardly-facing longitudinal gap therebetween; a wing extending transversely through the side parts of the fuselage; and a dorsal member running along the longitudinal gap and having a front portion above the wing and a rear portion which is behind the wing and extends upwards to define a tail fin.

The dorsal member may be secured to the fuselage. For example, the dorsal member could be secured to the fuselage behind the wing, such as by means of a projection which projects down into a slot in the bottom of the fuselage. However, it is preferable that, instead of securing the dorsal member to the fuselage, the dorsal member should be secured to the wing.

Usually, the toy aeroplane will include a tailplane which extends transversely through the side parts of the fuselage. The rear portion of the dorsal member may be secured to the tailplane.

A simple way of securing the dorsal member to the wing and the tailplane is to provide projections on the dorsal member which project downwards into apertures in the wing and the tailplane. Each projection may project downwards and then rearwards, so as to be generally L-shaped.

If the tailplane passes through rearwardly-opening slots in the side parts of the fuselage, the dorsal member, by being secured to the tailplane, may serve to prevent inadvertent disassembly of the tailplane caused by the tailplane moving rearwardly out of the rearwardly-opening tailplane slots.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a toy aeroplane comprising: a fuselage having a pair of longitudinal side parts positioned side by side with an upwardly-facing longitudinal gap therebetween; a wing extending transversely through the side parts of the fuselage; a tailplane which passes through rearwardly-opening slots in the side parts of the fuselage; and a dorsal member running along the longitudinal gap and having a front portion secured to the wing or the fuselage and a rear portion secured to the tailplane.

With the second aspect of the present invention, the dorsal member helps to secure in position the tailplane.

Usually, the front portion of the dorsal member will be secured to the wing.

Preferably, the front portion has a lower edge which rests on or closely follows the upper surface of the wing and the rear portion has a lower edge which rests on or closely follows the upper surface of the tailplane. In this way, the front portion of the dorsal member may be used to help maintain an upwardly-bowed curvature of the central portion of wing.

In a preferred embodiment, the dorsal member has an upper edge which starts off at the front end thereof below the level of the top of the side parts of the fuselage and runs rearwardly rising above the top of the side parts and remaining thereabove back to its rear end. In this way, the dorsal member may be used to impart additional height to the side profile of the aeroplane along a substantial part of the length of the toy aeroplane. This removes the need for the additional height to be provided by the two side parts of the fuselage. By providing the additional height by using one structural compoont (the dorsal member) rather than two structural components (the side parts of the fuselage), the construction is simplified and the aeroplane is made lighter and, hopefully, therefore more aerodynamic.

Preferably, the transition from below to above the top of the side parts occurs at or adjacent to the front of the wing, and the top of the side parts in front of that transition point siopes generally forwards and downwards.

In this way, a visually pleasing side profile of the aeroplane may be provided, by removing or reducing the number of sharp discontinuities or changes in direction of the side profile.

In many embodiments, the upper edge of the dorsal member rises to a local maximum height above the wing.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a toy aeroplane comprising: a fuselage having a pair of longitudinal side parts positioned side by side; and a wing; wherein: each side part has a wingreceiving structure comprising an upwardly-facing wing-supporting surface, a rear arm extending forwards over the rear end of the wing-supporting surface to define a rear wing slot, a front arm extending rearwards over the from end of the wing-supporting surface to define a front wing slot, and an opening between the front and rear arms; the wing-receiving structures are substantially identical and are positionable side by side; at the centre of the wing, the leading edge thereof has at least one front notch for engaging the front wing slots and the trailing edge thereof has at least one rear notch for engaging the rear wing slots; and the distance between the front and rear notches is less than the length of the wing-supporting surfaces.

The usual method of assembling a toy aeroplane of this type involves pushing the wing down into the fuselage, rather than sliding the wing sideways into the fuselage. By ensuring that the distance between the front and rear notches is less than the length of the wing-supporting surfaces, the amount of bowing of the wing that is needed to enable the wing to be lowered down into the wing-receiving structures of the fuselage may be reduced in that the bowing of the wing may be combined with a forward sliding or rearward sliding of the wing into the front or rear wing slots prior to releasing the bowing to bring the wing into engagement with the other wing slots.

In many embodiments, in order to improve the benefit of this aspect of the invention, one of the front and rear arms is longer than the other one of the front and rear arms.

Even more preferably, the rear arm is longer than the front arm.

This facilitates sliding the trailing edge of the wing into the rear wing slots of the fuselage, pressing down the leading edge of the wing (perhaps with a small amount of bowing), and sliding the wing forwards in the fuselage to bring the leading edge of the wing into the front wing slots whilst still retaining the rear of the wing in the rear wing slots, so as to complete the securing of the wing in the fuselage.

Considered differently, there is defined a first distance along the wingsupporting surface from the front of the wing-supporting surface to the front of the rear arm, and a second distance along the wing-supporting surface from the rear of the wing-supporting surface to the rear of the front arm; and the distance between the front and rear notches is less than one of the first and second distances.

In this way, when assembling the wing into the fuselage, it is not necessary to impart any significant upward-bowing to the wing, other than that wconform it to any curved shape of the wing-supporting surfaces.

Preferably, the distance between the front and rear notches is greater than the other one of the first and second distances. This ensures that when wing has been slid into one of the sets of wing slots and is then slid into the other set of wing slots, the second sliding movement may be such as to bring the wing fully into abutting engagement with the ends of the other wing slotswthout fear of this movement causing the wing to exit from and thus no longer be secured by the first set of wing slots.

bfisrably, said one of the first and second distances is the second distance.

Usually, the wing has two of said front notches, separated by a central from projection, and two of said rear notches, separated by a central rear projection Features from the three aspects of the present invention may be combined together in any permutation.

The present invention will now be described by way of a non-limiting emWiment with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figs. 1 to 5 show the disassembled parts of a toy aeroplane in accordance with the present invention, with the parts being shown lying flat on a surface, Fig. 6 shows an early assembly stage for assembling the parts of the toy glider; Fig. 7 shows the completion of the early assembly stage; Fig. 8 shows a subsequent assembly stage; ;Fi 9 shows a yet further assembly stage; and Fig. 10 shows the fully-assembled toy glider.

The unassembled components of the toy glider shown in Figs. 1-4 are cut out of sheet material, such as a thin expanded foam material. Fig. 1 shows a fuselage 100 comprising two side parts 101 which are symmetric about a longitudinal fold line 102. The rear end of the fuselage has a pair of rearwardly-opening tailplane slots 103 which are arranged to be juxtaposed side-by-side when the side parts 101 are folded upwardly about the fold line 102.

Each side part 101 has a wing receiving structure 104 disposed at about the mid-portion thereof. The wing-receiving structure 104 comprises a wingsupporting surface 105 which faces upwards in the assembled glider, a rear arm 106 which extends forwards over the rear end of the wing-supporting surface to define a rear wing slot 107, a front arm 108 which extends rearwards over the front end of the wing-supporting surface to define a front wing slot 109, and an opening 110 between the front and rear arms 106, 108.

The two wing-receiving structures 104 are arranged to be juxtaposed side-by-side when the side parts 101 have been folded together, to permit insertion of a wing.

Fig. 2 shows a dorsal member 200 having a front portion 201 and a rear portion 202 which includes a tail fin 203. Projecting downwardly and rearwardly from the front portion 201 is a generally L-shaped front tab 204.

Projecting downwardly and rearwardly from the rear portion 202 is a generally L-shaped rear tab 205.

Fig. 3 shows a wing 300 comprising wing halves 301 separated by a centreline 302 which extends longitudinally in the assembled toy glider. Each wing half 301 has a wing tip 303 which is connected to the rest of the wing half across a fold line 304, so that a user may bend the wing tips 303 to produce a banking turn or other desired flight characteristic of the toy glider after it is thrown by the user.

The wing 300 has a leading edge 305 which includes a cental forward projection 306 on each side of which are front notches 307 positioned adjacent to the centreline 302. The trailing edge 308 includes a central rearward projection 349 on each side of which is a rear notch 310.

On the centreline 302, there is a longitudinal slot 311 for receiving the front tab 204.

Fig. 4 shows the tailplane 400 having two tailplane halves 4P1 on rupective sides of a centreline 402 which extends longitudinally of the assembled toy glider. The front of the tailplane 400 has a forward projection 403 on each side of which, adjacent to the centreline 402, is a forward notch 404. The tailplane 400 includes elevator portions 405 which may be flexibly adjusted into a desired orientation by folding along fold lines 406. A longitudinal slot 407 is positioned on the centreline 41n for receiving the rear tab 205.

Fig. 5 shows a nose clip 500 which, unlike the other components lox400, is made of moulded plastics material so as to be relatively heavy to act as a weight at the front of the assembled glider for stabilising the flight of the toy glider The nose clip 500 includes a rearwardly-facing slot 501 (see Fig. 10) for receiving and pinching together nose portions 111 of the side parts 101.

The assembly steps will now be described with reference to Figs. 6-10.

Firstly, the side parts 101 of the fuselage 100 are folded upwards along the fold line 102 so that there is a generally V-shaped longitudinal gap between the side parts 101. Then, as shown in Fig. 6, the tailplane 400 is slid for s in the direction of the arrows A, so as to slide the forward notches 404 into the tailplane slots 103, with the forward projection 403 being located between the side parts 101. The tailplane 400 helps to hold together the upwatrdly-folded side parts 101.

Returning briefly to consider Figs. 1 and 3, the wing 300 has a distance D between the front and rear notches 307, 310.

The curved length of the wing-supporting surface 105 is a distance C.

The distance between the front end of the rear arm 106 and the front end of the wing-supporting surface 105 is a distance D.

There is a distance E along the wing-supporting surface 105 from the rear of the front arm 108 to the rear of the wing-supporting surface 105.

Distance D is less than distance E because rear arm 106 is longer than the front arm 108.

Distance B is less than distance C to facilitate assembly of the wing 300 into the fuselage 100.

Firstly, as shown in Fig. 6, the wing 300 is pushed backwardly in the direction of arrows F so as to bring the rear notches 310 into engagement with the rear wing slots 107. The backward movement is continued until the base of each rear notch 310 hits the base of its associated rear wing slot 107.

The front of the wing 300 is then pushed downwardly in the direction of the arrow G. This imparts an upward bow to the centre of the wing 300 by bringing the undersurface of the wing into abutting engagement with the convex wing supporting surfaces 105.

During the downward movement in the direction of arrow G, the front notches 307 do not clash with the front arms 108 in view of the fact that distance B is less than distance E.

After pressing down in direction G, the wing 300 is slid forwards in the direction of arrows H until the bases of the front notches 307 engage with the bases of the front wing slots 109. The result of the completion of this part of the assembly process is shown in Fig. 7. Because the distance B is greater than the distance D, the forward movement in the direction of arrows H does not cause the rear notches 310 to exit the rear wing slots 109.

Because distance B is greater than distance D but less than distance E, it favours assembly of the wing 300 to the fuselage 100 in the order of rearward sliding followed by forward sliding. This order could be reversed by shortening the rear arms 106 and lengthening the front arms 108 so that the distance B is less than the distance D but greater than the distance E.

The next part of the assembly procedure is shown in Fig. 8. Taking the partially assembled toy glider of Fig. 7, the dorsal member 200 is moved downwardly as shown by arrows I in Fig. 8. The dorsal member 200 moves downwards from the dotted position to the solid line position This inserts the tab 204 into the slot 311, and the tab 205 into the slot 407. This is possible because the maximum length of each tab is less than the length of its associated slot.

By moving the dorsal member 200 rearwardly (to the left in Fig. 8) in Xe direction of arrow J, the dorsal member 200 is locked to the wing 300 and to the tailplane 400 (see Fig. 9). This locking occurs because each tab comprises a narrow neck that leads to a wide head, so as to define a slot between the head of the tab and the adjacent front or rear portion of the dorsal member 200. It is these slots of the tabs 204, 205 which engage with the wing 300 and tailplane 400 to provide the locking action.

The lower edge 206 of the dorsal member 200 is generally concave at the front portion 201 so as to conform to the upwardly-bowed shape of the wing 300 The lower edge 206 is straight at the bottom of the rear portion 202 so as to conform generally to the straight upper surface of the tailplane 400.

To complete the assembly of the toy glider, the nose clip 500 is used to clip together the nose portions 111 of the fuselage 100, as shown by arrow K, in Fig. 9. The finished glider is shown in Fig. 10.

It may be seen that the dorsal member 200 serves to provide both a tail fin 203 and also to lock the tailplane 400 into the tailplane slots 103 to prevent inadvertent removal therefrom. The upper edge 207 of the dorsal member 200 starts off, at the front thereof, at the same height as or just below the upper edge of the nose portions 111. The upper edge 207, as it runs rearwards, rises up above the fuselage 100, in side profile, to provide a localised bump 208 (See Fig. 9) which resembles a cockpit.

The upper edge 207 then decreases in height in the rearward direction, while still remaining above the fuselage 100, and then rises up again to define the tail fin 203. Thus, a significant amount of the upper part of the height of the toy glider may be provided by a single component (the dorsal member 200) rather than two components (the two side parts 101).

Claims

1. A toy aeroplane comprising: a fuselage having a pair of longitudinal side parts positioned side by side with an upwardly-facing longitudinal gap therebetween; a wing extending transversely through the side parts of the fuselage; and a dorsal member running along the longitudinal gap and having a front portion above the wing and a rear portion which is behind the wing and extends upwards to define a tail fin.

2. A toy aeroplane according to claim 1, wherein the front portion of the dorsal member is secured to the wing.

3. A toy aeroplane according to claim 1 or 2, wherein a tailptane extends transversely through the side parts of the fuselage and the rear portion of the dorsal member is secured to the tailplane.

4, A toy aeroplane according to claim 3 when dependent on claim 2, wherein the dorsal member has projections which project downwards into Npertures in the wing and tailplane.

5 A toy aeroplane according to claim 4, wherein each projection projects downwards and then rearwards.

6. A toy aeroplane according to claim 3, 4 or 5, wherein the tailplane passes through rearwardly-opening slots in the side parts of the fuselage.

7. A toy aeroplane comprising: a fuselage having a pair of longitudinal side parts positioned side by side with an upwardly-facing longitudinal gap therebetween; a wing extending transversely through the side parts of the fuselage; a tailplane which passes through rearwardly-opening slots in the side parts of the fuselage; and a dorsal member running along the longitudinal gap and having a front portion secured to the wing or the fuselage and a rear portion secured to the tailplane.

8. A toy aeroplane according to claim 7, wherein the front portion of the dorsal member is secured to the wing.

9. A toy aeroplane according to claim 7 or 8, wherein the front portion has a lower edge which rests on or closely follows the upper surface of the wing and the rear portion has a lower edge which rests on or closely follows the upper surface of the tailplane.

10. A toy aeroplane according to any one of claims 7 to 9, wherein the dorsal member has projections which project downwards into apertures in the wing and the tailplane.

11. A toy aeroplane according to claim 10, wherein each projection projects downwards and then rearwards.

12. A toy aeroplane according to any one of the preceding claims,. wherein the dorsal member has an upper edge which starts off at the front end thereof below the level of the top of the side parts of the fuselage and runs rearwardly rising above the top of the side parts and remaining thereabove back to its rear end

13. A toy aeroplane according to claim 12, wherein the transition from to to above the top of the side parts occurs at or adjacent to the front of the wing, and the top of the side parts in front of that transition point slopes generally forwards and downwards.

14. A toy aeroplane according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the upper edge of the dorsal member rises to a local maximum height above the wing.

13. A toy aeroplane comprising: a fuselage having a pair of longitudinal side parts positioned side by side; and a wing; wherein: each side part has a wing-receiving structure comprising an upwardly-facing wing-supporting surface, a rear arm extending forwards over the rear end of the wing-supporting surface to define a rear wing slot, a front arm extending rearwards over the front end of the wing-supporting surface to define a front wing slot, and an opening between the front and rear arms; the wing-receiving structures are substantially identical and are positionable side by side; at the centre of the wing, the leading edge thereof has at least one front notch for engaging the front wing slots and the trailing edge thereof has at least one rear notch for engaging the rear wing slots; and the distance between the front and rear notches is less than the length of the wing-supporting surfaces.

16. A toy aeroplane according to claim 15, wherein, for each wing-receiving structure, one of the front and rear arms is longer than the other one of the front and rear arms.

17. A toy aeroplane according to claim 16, wherein the rear arm is longer than the front arm.

18. A toy aeroplane according to claim 15, wherein: there is defined a first distance along the wing-supporting surface from the front of the wing-supporting surface to the front of the rear arm, and a second distance along the wing-supporting surface from the rear of the wing-supporting surface to the rear of the front arm; and the distance between the front and rear notches is less than one of the first and second distances.

19. A toy aeroplane according to claim 18, wherein the distance between the front and rear notches is greater than the other one of the first and second distances.

20. A toy aeroplane according to claim 18 or 19, wherein said one of the first and second distances is the second distance.

21. A toy aeroplane according to any one of claims 15 to 20, wherein the wing has two of said front notches, separated by a central front projection, and two of said rear notches, separated by a central rear projection.

22. A toy aeroplane, substantially as herein described with reference to, or with reference to and as illustrated in, the accompanying drawings.